MiG-21 1.5.4 Major Upgrade & Changelog

Havent trawled through all the posts, but my views with Mig 21 module seem to have gone awry...anyone else had this??

I haven't had any issues landing with the new FM. Really enjoy the challenge of the Mig-21. When she gets slow she gets sloppy and I like it.

Does it look wierd to you? looks fine to me.

 

Does it look wierd to you? looks fine to me.

They may just be referring to gear weakness. For a time from about late 2014 til early 2015, IIRC, the gear was very soft.

I think the same about approach & landings: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=2846900#post2846900

Well, I don't think the actual landing is harder, but the approach requires more attention. When I watch video of real tactical aircraft landing, I see there control surfaces deflecting with lots of small movements. With the last MiG-21 FM, if you trimmed it, it would fly itself down to the flare with almost no corrections at 340 kph. Now the aircraft needs small corrections during final, more in line with my expectations. There may be more ground effect than before so I flare less on touchdown, but have not had any landing gear damage or crashes on the approach (I had one crash right after the new FM where I allowed the MiG to get slow turning onto final - I stalled and crashed, but I wasn't watching my speed carefully :)).

My only FM "curiosity" is with stall behavior. It seems that there should be more roll off and instability while stalled (just an uneducated guess...:music_whistling:). The MiG-21's stall behavior is actually quite similar to the F-15C (lose airspeed and AOA pegs, but the aircraft still flies - sort of), but the F-15C has more uncommanded roll and the nose is wanders much more - even with the help of CAS deflecting the rudders the whole time. The F-15C also seems to bleed more energy.

I also have another question about the FM: is this new FM an example of a "back-ported" feature from upcoming aircraft? Meaning a more sophisticated FM overall or just a "fine tuning" of the existing FM? It seems much more nuanced than the prior iteration.

-Nick

I love to the difficulty that 21 to land it, I encourage LN with the simulation in this module and will not be transformed into an "ace combat", the mig-21 has disadvantages compared to other aircraft is making it more entertaining and realistic, I encourage you !! :)

and I'm still waiting for those lights xD

 

I also have another question about the FM: is this new FM an example of a "back-ported" feature from upcoming aircraft? Meaning a more sophisticated FM overall or just a "fine tuning" of the existing FM? It seems much more nuanced than the prior iteration.

 

-Nick

Nope! The new FMs are built entirely from the ground up, and have been designed with all of our prior experience in mind.

In the end, the method is mostly the same (there are just so many ways you can build a dynamic flight model) - but we believe it will be much easier to adhere to performance specifications.

We've also built some new tools to help validate and test our flight models. These are very useful for quickly testing things like acceleration or climb, without actually flying the aircraft rigorously.

IMHO. The RL Mig-21 is very stable on final approach, due to it's high speed 350-320 Km/h, it's not "sloppy", or unstable at those speeds.

The difficulty with landings are associated with poor forward visibility & not instability (that's why the app. speed must be high).

I's not difficult to land or fly the 21, it's an honest & simple airplane.

No stability difficulties, previous FM was spot on:

It was designed with durable landing gear that allows rough

takeoffs and landings from ground & beaten snow runways.

Rodd, I do ~10 landings a day since the update1 of 1.5.4 in Mig21 and I haven't noticed any difficulties with landing or anything terribly wrong during low speed manoeuvring (<400km/h), although I haven't flown dcs before that for a while (skipped 1.5.3 as the game was crashing for me). The 21 now to me feels similar to 1.2.x when it was first introduced.

What I noticed is that ground effect and/or possibly SPS are stronger than in earlier versions though. About responsiveness, can you check that you don't have sau stabilise on? I also remember that after some updates, controls bugged out, until I've rebuilt the config file, especially stick axis assignments.

P.S. Check Hadwells landing. He didn't broke the front wheel either - proof of sturdy landing gear indeed! :P

IMHO. The RL Mig-21 is very stable on final approach, due to it's high speed 350-320 Km/h, it's not "sloppy", or unstable at those speeds.

The difficulty with landings are associated with poor forward visibility & not instability (that's why the app. speed must be high).

I's not difficult to land or fly the 21, it's an honest & simple airplane.

 

No stability difficulties, previous FM was spot on:

 

It was designed with durable landing gear that allows rough

takeoffs and landings from ground & beaten snow runways.

I have to agree with your opinion based on PIREPs and talking to guys who have flown -21s while at airshows. However, I'm seeing very little issue with the current low speed flight model other than roll rate.

That said, the last point shouldn't be limited to here in the Leatherneck forums. I personally think it's a much more important issue to raise for DCS. The old Soviet fighters aren't the only ones designed for this sort of improvised runway operation. The F-5 series is also quite capable of it as well:

https://youtu.be/qMBXJFHUrPo?t=14m58s

And with the coming addition of WWII era piston fighters, it's clear to me that ED should place a higher priority on developing better soft field operations over all for DCS.

[...]

 

And with the coming addition of WWII era piston fighters, it's clear to me that ED should place a higher priority on developing better soft field operations over all for DCS.

Coming? They have been around in DCS for quiet some time now and I'm pretty sure they do work on grass surface, unlike the modern jets.

And grass strips are being intruduced as we speak. Or haven't you been reading the updates news?

Coming? They have been around in DCS for quiet some time now and I'm pretty sure they do work on grass surface, unlike the modern jets.

Some what. A Fishbed still shouldn't sink into it like it does.

And grass strips are being intruduced as we speak. Or haven't you been reading the updates news?

I glance over them. I mostly play DCS for Cold War era and more modern fighters. Usually, the piston offerings don't interest me that much

Any update for MIG21 today??

Nope! The new FMs are built entirely from the ground up, and have been designed with all of our prior experience in mind.

In the end, the method is mostly the same (there are just so many ways you can build a dynamic flight model) - but we believe it will be much easier to adhere to performance specifications.

 

We've also built some new tools to help validate and test our flight models. These are very useful for quickly testing things like acceleration or climb, without actually flying the aircraft rigorously.

I sincerely wish you success in your work. :thumbup:

P.S. Check Hadwells landing. He didn't broke the front wheel either - proof of sturdy landing gear indeed! :P

Indeed, there's nothing wrong with the gear. One thing that may cause the front wheel to break is coming down too fast, bouncing back up, and land hard on front wheel. It won't withstand the impact.

Changelog for 1.5.4 Update 22/7

The night lighting has been fixed and committed- and will be available at the next patch pull after this one.

• Corrected nosecone damage values
  
  
• Corrected roll-rate and roll-acceleration
  
  
• Fixed chat inputs
  
  
• Fixed Autostart issues
  
  
• Fixed view jumping during takeoff and landing
  
  

Enjoy fighting the F-5E!

Nope! The new FMs are built entirely from the ground up, and have been designed with all of our prior experience in mind.

In the end, the method is mostly the same (there are just so many ways you can build a dynamic flight model) - but we believe it will be much easier to adhere to performance specifications.

 

We've also built some new tools to help validate and test our flight models. These are very useful for quickly testing things like acceleration or climb, without actually flying the aircraft rigorously.

Thank you for the answer and the new change-log.:thumbup:

-Nick

Changelog for 1.5.4 Update 22/7

 

 

 

 

 

The night lighting has been fixed and committed- and will be available at the next patch pull after this one.

 

 

 

 

 

• 
  
   
  
  
   
  
  
• Corrected nosecone damage values
  
  
   
  
  
   
  
  
• Corrected roll-rate and roll-acceleration
  
  
   
  
  
   
  
  
• Fixed chat inputs
  
  
   
  
  
   
  
  
• Fixed Autostart issues
  
  
   
  
  
   
  
  
• Fixed view jumping during takeoff and landing
  
  
   
  
  
   
  
  

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy fighting the F-5E!

Great news, any chance we can get some binaries to fix the flood lights up in the interim?

Changelog for 1.5.4 Update 22/7

 

The night lighting has been fixed and committed- and will be available at the next patch pull after this one.

 

• Corrected nosecone damage values
  
  
• Corrected roll-rate and roll-acceleration
  
  
• Fixed chat inputs
  
  
• Fixed Autostart issues
  
  
• Fixed view jumping during takeoff and landing
  
  

 

Enjoy fighting the F-5E!

How about the R-60M's?

How about the R-60M's?

It might be that all R60m's are affected, not only Mig21. In L39ZA I do not get front aspect lock tone, but L39 let's you fire anyway even without lock. If you are within specs, you can fire without tone and the head will home in more often than not, even dead head-on if you are really close.

This led me to experiment a little bit with Mig21 r60m's and you can emulate it by enabling bomb arm switch (next to the pitot heater switches). You will get "62" green light on and after first launch constant lock tone (which is a bit strange), so from then on you will have to depend on your own judgement when to launch them.

Maybe it will help to determine where the issue with r60m's feedback is.

It is worth noting that the R-60M isn't entirely all aspect. It normally isn't able to track a target from directly ahead but it can track them from oblique angles.

Is it just me, or is the Radar broken AGAIN.

It was just working fine before the patch, and I was so excited to fight against F-5's, but it seems its not working nearly as well.

Anybody else have this issue?

It is worth noting that the R-60M isn't entirely all aspect. It normally isn't able to track a target from directly ahead but it can track them from oblique angles.

Exactly! As it was discussed many times before even the R-60M has only a very limited front aspect capability. In real life that would be a target flying in full AB exactly towards you and a little higher than you and even then the seeker would possibly only acquire the heat source at very short range. So, basically the R-60M is pretty much useless in a head on scenario...

Exactly! As it was discussed many times before even the R-60M has only a very limited front aspect capability. In real life that would be a target flying in full AB exactly towards you and a little higher than you and even then the seeker would possibly only acquire the heat source at very short range. So, basically the R-60M is pretty much useless in a head on scenario...

Tango & TheJay, you guys are absolutely right, that is common knowledge about R60M. The reason why people ask about R60M in conjunction with dcs Mig21 (although there is no lock tone in the L39za either from the front, so i believe it is more of missile issue than mig21 module) is that there seems to be a longer standing issue, where you will not get lock tone from the front hemisphere almost ever and it acts just like standard R60. There is something not completely right with the IR feedback in this case and it prevents the launch completely.

You can, however, enable the bomb arms switch as workaround and launch it when you think it should track. You might be surprised at what angles the seeker can track (head on only at ~3km from target, which is very close considering closing speed), if you bypass that launcher lock/light. It is somewhat dirty workaround, but for the time being will have to do ... :P